Recent advances in metabolic engineering of Corynebacterium glutamicum as a potential platform microorganism for biorefinery

Abstract

The fermentative production of platform chemicals in biorefineries is a sustainable alternative to current petroleum‐refining processes. Industrial microorganisms, such as Escherichia coli, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and Corynebacterium glutamicum, have been engineered as microbial cell factories that are able to utilize biomass for the production of value‐added platform chemicals and polymers. Compared to E. coli and S. cerevisiae, C. glutamicum displays weak carbon catabolite repression and can co‐utilize mixed sugars as carbon sources, without any significant growth retardation. Pathways for the utilization of alternative carbon sources, such as d‐xylose and l‐arabinose from lignocellulosic biomass, lactose and galactose from whey, glycerol from biodiesel, and methanol from natural gas refineries, have been evaluated for chemical production. However, the application of C. glutamicum in biorefineries is limited because it does not secrete hydrolases for the efficient utilization of cellulose, xylan, and starch from lignocellulosic and starch biomass. To solve the limitation, C. glutamicum has been engineered for the consolidated bioprocessing of biomass by the heterologous expression of amylolytic and cellulolytic enzymes. Recently, C. glutamicum has been extensively engineered for polyamide monomer production owing to its ability to produce l‐lysine and l‐glutamate. This review summarizes recent advances in the development of C. glutamicum strains that can utilize renewable biomass resources for the production of industrially important chemicals. It highlights recent progress in metabolic engineering for the production of polyamide monomers. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Corynebacterium glutamicum, a natural overproducer of succinic acid?

“…While glucose is considered as one of the preferential glucose for C. glutamicum growth, it was also reported that C. glutamicum was able to grow on a variety of other sugars or organic acids as a single or combined carbon and/or energy source. It was, however, reported that C. glutamicum ATCC 13032 was not able to grow on C4‐dicarboxylates as succinate, fumarate, and malate, as sole carbon source .…”

Construction of a Vitreoscilla Hemoglobin Promoter-Based Tunable Expression System for Corynebacterium glutamicum

“…Biorefinery processes have been developed to establish a sustainable alternative to produce chemicals, polymers, and fuels, and they currently rely on petroleum-based processes [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. Development of recombinant microorganisms capable of converting a broader range of renewable biomass feedstock into bio-based chemicals, with properties comparable to those of conventional petrochemical products, have been extensively studied [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27].…”

“…For example, processes for the production of bio-polymers, such as polylactic acid (PLA) and polybutylene succinate (PBS) in a biorefinery have been established [21][22][23]. Polymerization of microbial fermentation derived-monomers, such as diamines, dicarboxylic acids, and amino carboxylic acids, yields these bio-based polymers [4,5]. Escherichia coli is one of the most commonly used microorganisms for the production of monomers used to prepare bio-based polymers [1,4,5].…”

“…Polymerization of microbial fermentation derived-monomers, such as diamines, dicarboxylic acids, and amino carboxylic acids, yields these bio-based polymers [4,5]. Escherichia coli is one of the most commonly used microorganisms for the production of monomers used to prepare bio-based polymers [1,4,5]. However, production of amino acid-derived products such as 5-aminovaleric acid (5-AVA) and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) from glucose using recombinant E. coli is limited, due to its inability to accumulate important precursors such as L-lysine and L-glutamate [24,27].…”

“…However, production of amino acid-derived products such as 5-aminovaleric acid (5-AVA) and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) from glucose using recombinant E. coli is limited, due to its inability to accumulate important precursors such as L-lysine and L-glutamate [24,27]. In this regard, Corynebacterium glutamicum, which is a generally recognized as safe (GRAS) strain, is an excellent workhorse to develop because of its innate ability to produce large amounts of amino acids such as L-lysine and L-glutamate [1,4,5]. Several studies have demonstrated that C. glutamicum can produce high levels of bio-based nylon monomers such putrescine, succinic acid [4], GABA [27], cadaverine [28,29], 5-AVA and glutaric acid, [30].…”